The purpose of this study was to investigate the formant frequencies and amplitudes of a wide age range of children and one group of adults at three sound pressure levels (SPLs). Subjects were ten females and ten males in the following age groups (in years): 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, and adults. A sustained /a/ was produced three times by each subject. Formant frequencies were obtained using linear predictive coding analysis. Formant amplitudes were measured from the highest amplitude harmonic in the area of each formant. In addition to following established trends previously published in other studies, it was hypothesized that the first formant frequency would increase with increasing intensity, that females would have higher formant frequencies than same aged males, and that women and children would have reduced formant amplitudes as compared to men. It was found that first formant frequency increased with intensity and changed as a function of age and sex. Second and third formant frequencies changed with age and sex. Formant amplitudes followed the trends set by the SPL differences and did not change as a function of age and sex. Results are discussed in terms of anatomic differences and SPL.
Changes in voice production occur throughout the life span, often in a nonlinear way and differently for male and female individuals. Higher variability of acoustic measures of voice in both young and old speakers reflects changes in anatomic structure, physiologic mechanisms, and motor control.
Purpose The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of cognitive-linguistic deficits and respiratory physiologic changes on respiratory support for speech in PD, using two speech tasks, reading and extemporaneous speech. Methods Five women with PD, 9 men with PD, and 14 age- and sex-matched control participants read a passage and spoke extemporaneously on a topic of their choice at comfortable loudness. Sound pressure level, syllables per breath group, speech rate, and lung volume parameters were measured. Number of formulation errors, disfluencies, and filled pauses were counted. Results Individuals with PD produced shorter utterances as compared to control participants. The relationships between utterance length and lung volume initiation and inspiratory duration were weaker in individuals with PD than for control participants, particularly for the extemporaneous speech task. These results suggest less consistent planning for utterance length by individuals with PD in extemporaneous speech. Individuals with PD produced more formulation errors in both tasks and significantly fewer filled pauses in extemporaneous speech. Conclusions Both respiratory physiologic and cognitive-linguistic issues affected speech production by individuals with PD. Overall, individuals with PD had difficulty planning or coordinating language formulation and respiratory support, in particular during extemporaneous speech.
The purpose of the present study was to determine whether different cues to increase loudness in speech result in different internal targets (or goals) for respiratory movement and whether the neural control of the respiratory system is sensitive to changes in the speaker's internal loudness target. This study examined respiratory mechanisms during speech in 30 young adults at comfortable level and increased loudness levels. Increased loudness was elicited using three methods: asking subjects to target a specific sound pressure level, asking subjects to speak twice as loud as comfortable, and asking subjects to speak in noise. All three loud conditions resulted in similar increases in sound pressure level . However, the respiratory mechanisms used to support the increase in loudness differed significantly depending on how the louder speech was elicited. When asked to target at a particular sound pressure level, subjects used a mechanism of increasing the lung volume at which speech was initiated to take advantage of higher recoil pressures. When asked to speak twice as loud as comfortable, subjects increased expiratory muscle tension, for the most part, to increase the pressure for speech. However, in the most natural of the elicitation methods, speaking in noise, the subjects used a combined respiratory approach, using both increased recoil pressures and increased expiratory muscle tension. In noise, an additional target, possibly improving intelligibility of speech, was reflected in the slowing of speech rate and in larger volume excursions even though the speakers were producing the same number of syllables.
Age-related reductions in pulmonary elastic recoil and respiratory muscle strength can affect how older adults generate subglottal pressure required for speech production. The present study examined age-related changes in speech breathing by manipulating utterance length and loudness during a connected speech task (monologue). Twenty-three older adults and twenty-eight young adults produced a monologue at comfortable loudness and pitch and with multi-talker babble noise playing in the room to elicit louder speech. Dependent variables included sound pressure level, speech rate, and lung volume initiation, termination, and excursion. Older adults produced shorter utterances than young adults overall. Age-related effects were larger for longer utterances. Older adults demonstrated very different lung volume adjustments for loud speech than young adults. These results suggest that older adults have a more difficult time when the speech system is being taxed by both utterance length and loudness. The data were consistent with the hypothesis that both young and older adults use utterance length in premotor speech planning processes.
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